“I have no idea. Lillian has never talked much about her past. All I know is she is the last of her family line and she inherited a great deal of money. The important thing is that whoever wrote the extortion letter obviously knows Lillian Dewhurst is Aunt Cornelia.”
“Not necessarily,” Sam said. “If the blackmailer knew Dewhurst was Cornelia, the letter would have been sent directly to her address here in Adelina Beach. You said it was delivered in a bag of reader mail that came from the editor of the Courier.”
“That’s right.” Maggie’s voice brightened. “An excellent observation, Mr. Sage.”
“Believe it or not, this isn’t my first investigation.”
She ignored that. “You’re saying the extortionist has reason to believe that the woman who is Aunt Cornelia was involved in Jennaway’s death but doesn’t know Aunt Cornelia’s real identity.”
“Yes.”
“Seems rather odd, don’t you think?”
“Not necessarily,” Sam said. “It indicates the blackmailer may have come by the incriminating information secondhand. Knows something about what happened but doesn’t know the players personally.”
“Hmm. I see what you mean.”
“Mind if I ask how you got the job as Aunt Cornelia’s assistant?”
“We met at a seminar on lucid dreaming,” Maggie said. “We both have an interest in the subject. Why?”
More screwy dream stuff. Sam suppressed a groan and reminded himself it still beat divorce work.
“Here’s what strikes me as strange,” he said. “Miss Dewhurst has been a near recluse for years, but she suddenly decides to go on a long ocean voyage where she will be stuck on a ship with a lot of other passengers.”
“Your point?”
“It’s hard to be a recluse on a ship.”
There was another beat of silence on the other end of the phone.
“Several weeks ago Lillian began to come out of her shell,” Maggie said.
“Was there a reason for the change?”
“That is none of your business, Mr. Sage.”
“Did you perhaps suggest she throw out a perfectly good piece of furniture? A nice chair? A lamp? A coatrack?”
“We are not going to discuss the matter,” Maggie said. Icicles hung on each word. “You have made it clear you are not a student of metaphysics. Let’s return to the subject of the investigation I hired you to carry out.”
“Sure. I’ll leave the physics to you.”
“Metaphysics.”
“Moving on. I assume that, as Dewhurst’s assistant, you handle her correspondence. Has she received any unusual mail addressed directly to her lately?”
“Nothing of a personal nature. She gets bills in her own name and bank statements. She also subscribes to some magazines and scientific journals.”
“What kinds of scientific journals?”
“Journals that focus on metaphysics.” Maggie’s voice was glacial now.
“Forget I asked.”
“That won’t be difficult.”
“Notice any long-distance calls on the latest phone bill?”
“No.”
Sam thought for a moment. “Any chance she might have an anonymous mailbox at the post office?”
“Not that I know of.” Maggie paused. “That’s an interesting idea, though. A post office box would be an excellent way to keep certain types of correspondence a secret from others in the household. In this case, however, the question is, why bother? Miss Dewhurst lives alone.”
Sam got the ghostly whisper of awareness. “You appear to be one of the very few people who are close to Lillian Dewhurst.”
“Trust me, that did occur to me,” Maggie said, her voice sharp but not defensive. “The only secret I’m aware of is that she is Aunt Cornelia. I’m not the one blackmailing my employer. If I was, I wouldn’t have hired you.”
“It would be an interesting way of diverting suspicion from yourself.”
“Hmm.”
He thought he heard paper rustling. It was a small, insignificant sound, but it set off warning bells.
“Miss Lodge? What are you doing?”
“Just making a few notes,” she said a little too smoothly. “Please go on.”
She was taking notes? That did not sound good. He wasn’t sure why it didn’t sound good, but his intuition told him it was ominous.
“You’ve worked for Dewhurst for a couple of months and now you’re writing the columns,” he said.
“I didn’t get rid of her in order to get her job, if that’s what you’re implying.”
“Just trying to establish the facts.”
“I don’t want her job. It’s a good career but it’s not my calling. It is Miss Dewhurst’s calling, however. She has a talent for giving the right advice.”
“Why isn’t it a calling for you?” he asked, distracted.
“One never knows how the story ends.”
“What?”
“An advice columnist almost never finds out if the person who asked for help took the advice and, if so, how things worked out,” Maggie explained. “I find the work somewhat unsatisfying. I want to know the outcome.”
So do I, Sam thought. Back to business. “Why Burning Cove?”
“Pardon?”
“The extortionist thinks the conference at the Guilfoyle Institute will be a good place to collect the blackmail payment. You said that Dewhurst had thought about attending the event?”
“We talked about it, but in the end we both changed our minds.”
“Why?”
“Lillian decided to take the voyage to the South Pacific instead. I changed my mind after I discovered that Dr. Emerson Oxlade would be the guest lecturer.”
“You consider him a quack?”
“Not in the usual sense. He’s a real doctor and he is serious about his research in the field of lucid dreaming, but he is extremely unethical. Knowing he was involved with the Guilfoyle Institute put me off the notion of attending.”
It was his turn to take notes. Sam picked up a pencil and jotted down the name Oxlade.
“How did you come to that conclusion about Dr. Oxlade?” he asked.
“Long story. It’s not relevant.”
He scrawled the word personal and followed it with an exclamation point.
“What are you doing, Mr. Sage?”
“Just making a few notes.”
“Oh.” She went silent.
He smiled, pleased at having been able to stop her cold, at least for a couple of beats, by throwing her own words back at her. The moment of satisfaction was fleeting, however, because he immediately went back to wondering why she had been making notes earlier. There was definitely something worrisome about it, but he couldn’t figure out why it made him uneasy.
He reminded himself to stay focused on the case.
“Everything about this situation appears to be linked to the conference at the Guilfoyle Institute,” he said.
“Exactly.” Energy infused her voice again. “I have come to the same conclusion.”
“I’m happy to continue to investigate, but it won’t be cheap. I’ll need a hotel room in Burning Cove, and there’s the cost of gas, meals, telephone calls, et cetera.”
“Money is not a problem, Mr. Sage. I agree the next step is to attend the dream conference at the Institute. It opens tomorrow evening with a formal reception. Would you prefer to take your own car, or would you like to accompany me? There’s the train, of course, but it will be more convenient to have our own vehicle once we’re in Burning Cove. We don’t want to have to call a taxi every time we need to follow a suspect.”
He tightened his grip on the phone. “No offense, Miss Lodge, but I don’t think it would be a good idea for you to accompany me.”
“Maggie, remember? Of course I have to go with you. I’m your cover.”
“Excuse me?”
“To slip into the crowd without calling attention to ourselves, we will have to appear to be ordinary conference attendees. I know a lot about lucid dreaming. I can talk the language, if you see what I mean.”
“Not really.”
“I’ll be able to blend in and provide you with a believable reason for being there.”
“I don’t think—”
“I’ll take care of the hotel reservations and the conference tickets,” Maggie concluded. “Don’t worry about the cost.”
It occurred to him he was losing control of the conversation, the case, and the client. He forced himself to concentrate.